SOURCE: "Emergent Ego," in Whitman in the Light of Vedantic Mysticism: An Interpretation, University of Nebraska Press, 1964, pp. 53-93.

In the following essay, Chari stresses the centrality of the notion of the self in Whitman's poetry, demonstrating the parallels between Whitman's conception of the self as the meaning of existence and the totality of reality, and the view of the self offered by Hindu mysticism.

 … the mystical identity the real I or Me or You
(Complete Writings, Vol. VI, Part I, No. 28) 

Any consistent interpretation of Whitman should, in my opinion, be centered around the concept of self, for the self is at once the organizing principle in his poetry and the stuff of the experience that it dramatizes. This unity of theme corresponds to a central identity of experience, which the poet finds in the very nature of consciousness itself. All unity is to be sought within...